


you can have manhattan

by interim



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Post-Reynolds Pamphlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:49:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8709487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interim/pseuds/interim
Summary: The morning after the Reynolds Pamphlet. Alexander is presumptuous and Eliza is conflicted.





	

**Author's Note:**

> somehow my most edited piece is the most garbage one. amazing.   
> title is sara bareilles and i've been thinking about "i'll tiptoe away so you don't have to say you heard me leave" for a thousand years

The first night is what one would expect when your husband tells the whole world that he slept with some twenty-something and let himself be extorted by her husband: crying, screaming, and eventually, a literal trash can fire. She’s seen the movies. She plays the role of the heartbroken wife. 

No one prepares Eliza about the day after. The heartbroken wife in the movies always montages or flashes forward through the next six months, where she finds peace. They never show the morning after when her tears have dried, she still has to get the kids out of bed and off to school, still has to work. Just without the husband. Without the habit of Alexander. He’s replaced with a continuous dull ache on her heart that she can tell will be there for a long while. 

After the kids are sent off in their buses and carpools, Eliza turns back to the house. It’s the quiet hour between the kids going to school and William waking up. She’ll use it mostly to organize her thoughts for when she talks to Alexander once he gets home from work. She hates being unprepared when entering serious discussions with him. When she was pregnant with Philip, he came home from the war before she had a chance to prepare how she would explain herself. It ended with one of their worst fights. She didn't need that now. 

She notices in the back hall behind the kitchen that there's still a light on. Alexander’s office. He never turns that light off when he leaves for work, no matter how many times Eliza has mentioned the kilowatt hour cost in this neighborhood. Before she makes it to the door, Alexander is in front of her, his hand suddenly clutching the doorknob and his eyes staring into her blankly. 

Eliza doesn't let the silence sit. “Why are you here?” she blurts out. 

“Um.” Her Alexander is tripping over his tongue. It would bring her more joy if it wasn't because of the given situation. “Got the day off since… everything.” 

Come on. He can write ninety pages for the whole world but he can't properly articulate it to her? 

As the tension settles into the air between them, he breaks the silence by finishing closing the door. Her eyes are drawn to the sound and she sees the familiar smudged pen marks on his hand. It reminds her of when she was young and in love and thought his preference for pen and paper in the twenty first century was charming. Now she's thinking about the ink stains he's leaving on the rug her father gave them for their first anniversary. Either the seventeen years of marriage have dulled the rose colored glasses she had when it came to Alexander or her immediate anger has made her more detail-oriented. A little of column A, a little of column B. 

“Fine. I’m going to go get some work done.” 

“Hey.” He grabs her by the wrist - and everything about it is still gentle, questioning, just trying to get her attention, she knows - but she yanks her hand away so quickly it almost hurts. “Sorry, can we just talk?”

“We talked last night.” Really, she cried and he tried to explain and she cut him off. Not so much of an open dialogue. 

“I don’t want to talk about  _ that _ .”

“Good. Me neither.” Eliza crosses her arms and waits for him, expectant. She doesn’t want to talk about what happened, but she doesn’t know what else he could bring up right now.  _ Hey, Eliza, I know we’re still reeling from me publishing a fucking dissertation on my affair with a twenty-something, but we need to talk about the grocery list _ . 

“I don't know if you've talked to a lawyer yet, but you should know—”

Suddenly everything is moving very fast for Eliza. “Why would I talk to a lawyer?” she demands. 

She knows the answer, but it scares her. He already ruined everything with that stupid post and now he has the nerve to ask her about her lawyer? Does he want to get rid of her that badly?

“You don’t really need one, I mean,” he stops and tries to breathe through what he wants to say. “I’ll give you whatever you want, the house, full custody, anything you want, Eliza.” Eliza looks back at him like he’s insulting her, and he finally gets the notion that they are not on the same page at all. “You aren’t… aren’t you leaving me?”

“Are you?”

“What are you talking about?”

Eliza rubs the heels of her hands in her eyes, trying to ward off a headache and tears behind her eyes. She knows they’re bad at this, the talking. Especially when it comes down to the real, difficult things. Almost twenty years together and they can’t talk to each other. She likes to assume they can read each other’s mind. Of course, that’s all been blown out the window. If he could sleep with that girl and hide it from Eliza, so easily without a hint showing up after all these years, if he could write his post without telling her first… what does she know about him at all? 

Still, she thought she knew he would never want to leave her. Not really, anyway. When they were younger, he tested her, push her so far to see if she would leave him. He’s playing those games all over again, but now… it’s real. She  _ should  _ leave. And from the looks of it he really does want her gone. 

“Why are you doing it like this?” she asks. She wishes she had more anger in her voice or more strength. She just sounds helpless. “If you didn’t want me anymore, you could have just left. You didn’t have to do this whole fucking elaborate setup of cheating on me, embarrassing me, and then practically forcing the divorce papers on me the next day.” 

Ah. There’s the anger. 

Alexander looks at her with hope, and she wants to peck out his eyes. He can tell that she’s upset, but she doesn’t want to leave him. He thinks he hasn’t lost her yet. He has lost her. She is not his anymore, but she is still his wife and she is not going to disrupt their entire home just because he tried to ruin their lives. 

Maybe, a couple months ago, he could’ve actually looked at her and been able to tell what she was thinking, the secret marital telepathy that says all couples are supposed to develop. But apparently that part of their marriage has also crumbled by the way he keeps staring at her with that dumb look on his face

“You’re not leaving me.” Clarifying. Half confirmation, half question. 

“William is not even a month old! And we have five other children,” she barks. He doesn’t get his clarification yet. 

At the very least, he knows it's not about the kids. Not entirely. 

She stares at him again, trying to piece together what she wants to say to him. She wants to throw something at him for making her feel so unwanted and helpless when she should just access her anger and upper hand. Eliza should be kicking him out, not feeling like he’s leaving her. 

“Eliza, what do you want from me right now?” he asks, throwing his hands up. Exasperation, desperation, frustration. 

_ I don't want you to be so prepared to leave me, _ she thinks.  _ I want you to undo all of this so we don't have this conversation. I want you not to force divorce papers on me.  _ She keeps her mouth shut. 

“Do you want a divorce?” Alexander prods again. God, this fucking question again. You’d think his lawyer was giving him a commission. 

She purses her lips, stops herself from twisting her ring around her finger as she always does when she's nervous. “I don't know,” she answers, though it's not really an answer. But it's the truth. She immediately regrets it when his face relaxes. 

“You’ll sleep in your office,” Eliza decides. Alexander looks up at her, a little confused. “The one here, I mean. I still want you around for the children.” 

“The children,” Alexander repeats, incredulous. 

“Yes. You humiliated them, the least you can do is not abandon them.” The word  _ abandon _ is a little harsh; they both wince. 

“Don’t, Eliza, I’m not abandoning anything,” he's a little quieter for that, but she’s still angry. 

“Why else do you want a divorce?”

“I thought you wanted one!” he says. “Shouldn't you? Isn’t that what scorned wives do? Leave their cheating husbands?” 

“Shut the fuck up, you sound like the papers. ‘Poor, scorned wife Eliza,’” she mocks. 

“I don't want you to feel trapped,” he defends.

She wishes she could tell him to shut the fuck up again. Of course he’s still trying to position himself as the good guy. “I don't care what you want,” she tells him. “We already decided this. You’re going to stay here, in your office.” 

“Okay,” he sighs. “Whatever you want.” 

The conversation hangs. She feels accomplished, but also like they’ve been going in circles. All she can do is look away from him. William, bless him, starts fussing over the baby monitor and she snatches it off the kitchen counter. 

“The baby, I have to go,” she excuses herself, even though she really doesn’t need to, and dashes up the stairs. 

Eliza can’t sleep in her own bed that night. She tosses and turns for a solid hour, even though she’s pretty sure took some melatonin a couple hours ago. A few more minutes of starting at the ceiling. The molding is chipping. She concedes finally and goes downstairs to find something to relieve her. Maybe Nyquil or a glass of warm milk, practice what she preaches to the kids. She stops at the bottom of the stairs and pushes gently on the door to check in on him. What is the separation looking like on him, if she can’t even fall asleep?

There are papers and books strewn across every surface, as always, but it seems less of his usual “organized chaos” style. Alexander is stretched out on their little couch, still fully clothed. And fast asleep. Eliza closes the door again. She does not sleep for the rest of the night. 


End file.
